Sending scheduled communications

Quick Tutorial Full Training

You can automatically send pre-created communications at regular intervals on the dates and times you specify. For example, you can send the following types of communications on a regular schedule:

  • New member welcome
  • Event and product promotions
  • Upcoming event reminders

Before you begin

Review the following important notes and prerequisite tasks.

Notes

Before you begin, review these important notes:

  • To create custom scheduled tasks, you must be licensed for Process Automation – Premium. Contact your AiSP or CPIL for details.
  • The Default publishing server must be enabled; if this publishing server is disabled, your scheduled tasks will not run. To review the Default publishing server, go to RiSE > Maintenance > Publishing servers. The Default column will indicate which publishing server (if there are more than one) is the default.

Creating the template and queries

Before creating a scheduled task, it is important that you have the template and conditional query created. See Creating a new communication template and Creating recipient queries for communications for details.

You must have the advanced tasks license key to create, copy, edit, or delete scheduled tasks.

Creating a scheduled communication task

Do the following to create a scheduled communication task:

  1. Go to RiSE > Process automation.
  2. Select Add new task.
  3. Enter a Name that indicates the purpose of the task.
  4. (Triggers tab) Create Triggers that tell the task when to run.
    1. Select Add trigger.
    2. Select the Frequency. You can select One time, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
    3.  If you select a Frequency of Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, you can Schedule the task to run at specified intervals. For example, you can schedule a weekly task to run every 3 weeks.
    4. If you select a Frequency of Weekly or Monthly, you can select the Day of week or Day of month when the task will run.

      5. Note: Add additional Process automation triggers to run scheduled communications for multiple days of the week or multiple days of the month. For example, to schedule a communication to run every week on Monday and Wednesday at 8:00 AM, create two separate triggers. The first trigger should be scheduled to run Monday at 8:00 AM and the second trigger on Wednesday at 8:00 AM.

    5. Select the Start date and time. When using a Frequency of Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, you can also select an End date and time. The start date and time is based on the system Time zone setting.
    6. To activate the trigger, select Enabled.
    7. Save the trigger.
    8. Add additional triggers if needed.

      9. Note: You can also edit and remove triggers from the Triggers tab.

  1. (optional) (Data sources tab) Create and manage query data sources for the task.

    2. All query data sources created for this task are listed. The name of all data sources will populate in a drop-down when defining a Condition or Action. You cannot delete a data source if the data source is selected within a Condition or Action, however not every data source you have defined must be used when creating a Condition or Action.

    1. Select Add data source.
      • Enter a Data source name. It is recommended that you choose a name that indicates the type of records returned by the data source. The name must be unique.
      • Select an existing query or click Create source query to add a new query.
        • If you select an existing query, the $/Common/Tasks/Queries folder opens by default.
        • If you choose to add a new query, you are taken to the Intelligent Query Architect where you can define a new query.
    2. Save your data source.
    3. If needed, add additional data sources.
  2. (optional) (Conditions tab) Specify Conditions that must be met in order for the task to run.
    1. If a query data source was defined on the Data sources or Actions tab, select one of the following options:
      • Use existing data sources - select a previously defined data source from the drop-down that will only display data sources that are not being used in any other Conditions.
      • Use results of IQA query as data source - select this option to define a new data source.
        • Enter a Data source name. It is recommended that you choose a name that indicates the type of records returned by the data source.
        • Select an existing query or click Create source query to add a new query.
          • If you select an existing query, the $/Common/Tasks/Queries folder opens by default.
          • If you choose to add a new query, you are taken to the Intelligent Query Architect where you can define a new query.
    2. If there were no previously defined data sources from the Data sources or Actions tab, provide the following required information:

      • Enter a Data source name. It is recommended that you choose a name that indicates the type of records returned by the data source.

        Select an existing query or click Create source query to add a new query.

        • If you select an existing query, the $/Common/Tasks/Queries folder opens by default.
        • If you choose to add a new query, you are taken to the Intelligent Query Architect where you can define a new query.

    3. Save your data source.
    4. If needed, add additional data sources.

    Warning! When a task is triggered, it only executes its action if the selected data sources return one or more records or no Conditions are defined.

    Note: This data source will populate on the Data sources tab once you click Save. You can also edit and remove data sources from the Conditions tab.

  1. (Actions tab) Define the action the task performs when it runs. In this case, you are defining the information needed to send the communication: the recipient list and communication template.
    1. Select Add action.
    2. Select an action Type of Send a communication.
    3. Specify a Recipient data source query, which determines the recipient list for your communication. Data sources added on the Conditions or Data Sources tab are available. For more information on creating recipient data source queries, see Creating a list of contacts to email.

      4. Note: You are not required to select a recipient data source if the communication template used by the action already contains a recipient data source. If you select a recipient data source in the action and the communication also contains a recipient data source, the action’s recipient data source is used.

    4. (optional) If needed, you can select Add new data source to select additional query data sources.
      1. Enter a Data source name. It is recommended that you choose a name that indicates the type of records returned by the data source.
      2. Select an existing query or click Create source query to add a new query.
        • If you select an existing query, the $/Common/Tasks/Queries folder opens by default.
        • If you choose to add a new query, you are taken to the Intelligent Query Architect where you can define a new query.
    5. Specify the Communication template that you want to send to the recipient list. You can either select an existing communication template or create a new template. For more information about templates, see Creating a new communication template.

      6. Warning! If the communication template contains an SSRS report as an attachment, the only parameter that will be passed through the task is an ID parameter (if the report has a parameter for ID). At this time, the ID filter is the only supported filter.

    6. Save the action.

      7. Note: You can also edit and remove actions from the Actions tab.

  2. To activate the task, select Enabled.
  3. Save the task.

What's next?